A family's longing for a child lost to Meningitis

Tag Archives: Ben Brooks-Dutton

The clarity of the ideas here rang loud and true with me, thanks so much for sharing this Ben. The more you have of love, the more the scars will deepen. I am equally convinced that the hurt surrounding bereavement matters but I learnt to let the grief run its natural cycle. I was very close to leading myself down a path of obligated grief due to a deep sense of guilt of not giving the same daily attention to my son as I would have, were he were still alive.
The concept of scars in my mind immediately drew a parallel to a scene in Cars 2 where Mater was about to get a disguise for a mission:
“Holly – The disguise won’t calibrate effectively without a smooth surface to graft onto.
Mater – For a second there, I thought you was tryin’ to fix my dents.
Holly – Yes, I was.
Mater – Then, no, thank you. I don’t get them dents buffed, pulled, filled or painted by Nobody. They way too valuable.
Holly – Your dents are valuable? Really?
Mater – I come by each one of ’em with my best friend, Lightning McQueen. I don’t fix these. I wanna remember these dents forever.”

A friend emailed me this morning after reading something he thought I might like to see.

‘Now in my defence,’ he began, ‘I never send you stuff like this, but I stumbled on it this morning and thought of you.’

I appreciated his caution; some days I’m just not in the mood to think or talk about grief. But then once in a while I read something that I feel compelled to share, mainly because I think it might just help someone else. I know from experience that a few words written in the right order and delivered at the right time can make all the difference. I for one have many people to thank for the words and time they have shared with me.

This following piece is guest post of sorts. Four years ago a young man, whom I know nothing about, took to the internet to try to find…